Today, the SLAC colloquium was presented by Dr. Lawrence Krauss of the Case-Western Reserve University. Krauss is a popularizer of science, remembered for such books as “The Physics of Star Trek” and “Quintessence”. His topic today drew a large and varied crowd from the laboratory, and raises a vital question: […]
When I hit the 190s for the number of blog entries I’d made so far, I really had it in my mind to make some notable remarks at entry 200. However, I was so excited about the Alaska cyclotron story I totally missed 200. So, here’s to entry number 201, […]
By the title, you might think I’m talking in the same scare tactics that conservatives use to induce fear about medical procedures like abortion. I’m not. I’m talking about cyclotrons. That’s right… cyclotrons. “Not in my backyard!”, says Alaska. Don’t believe me? “Check it out”:http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,69726,00.html The best part is the […]
The Royal Society is 345 years old, as of November 30. For the world’s oldest extant scientific society, this year is not as grand or glamorous as a nice round anniversary, like 350 or 400. However, this is the last year of the Royal Society under the Presidency of Lord […]
The universe is expanding. We sit on our tiny blue world in, as Douglas Adams put it, an unfashionable Western Spiral arm of a galaxy. This galaxy drifts lonely and unregarded, pulled along by the expansion of spacetime. As we sit here and wonder, the universe in contemplation of itself, […]
Science is a method, one well suited to finding the connections between seeming disparate phenomena. Electricity flow along a wire, a magnetic field flows outward from it, and yet these two phenomena are two sides of a single interaction. Insects foraging food on a jungle carpet, fish foraging food on […]
I read somewhere recently (or heard somewhere recently?) that most scientists don’t have the scientific method posted anywhere on the walls of their office or lab. I was struck by that fact, until I stopped and said, “Hey, stupid – you don’t have it on your wall, either!”. This morning, […]
“In a short essay, Steven Salzburg argues why the flu is an excellent example not just of evolution, but why it is critical to teach evolution”:http://newswire.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20051117.073638&time=08%2005%20PST&year=2005&public=0. I’d take it one step further: the flu is one poignant reason why it’s critical to teach the next generation about the nature of […]
I’ve been silent the last week, but that was primarily due to the intervention of the Thanksgiving holiday. Those three days right before the holiday’s start were filled with meetings to finalize or start reviews of several projects, a code freeze for the Braidwood experiment, and my initiation of an […]
I love physics. I’ve spent my past few weekends reviewing all those chapters on relativity in introductory physics textbooks that I had to rush through as a student, just to prep for the exam. I’ve mixed into that whitewashed view of special relativity Einstein’s original papers (translated) on the subject, […]
It kinda started back during the Protestant reformation, but it’s come back recently. The Catholic church has been weighing in over the last year on the roles of religion and science. Cardinal Shoenborn made the first overt rumblings in support of intelligent design as science back in July [TAOMPH73] [TAOMPH77], […]
I’ve been thinking a lot of late about what to say the next time I go to Washington. I seem to get there, one way or another, about twice a year these days. I don’t do it to sight-see, though Washington D.C. is “home to a rich and varied set […]